Thousands of South Africans gathered in various locations across the country on Friday to celebrate the country’s 13th year of freedom from apartheid rule.
In the Eastern Cape, President Thabo Mbeki addressed the packed Bisho Stadium and urged South Africans to join the fight against crime and corruption.
”We call on our people to renew their pledge for partnerships at community levels … to form and strengthen partnerships, to join community police forums, to create street and area committees so that together we can effectively fight crime.
”There is a minority in our country who have made crime their business, who terrorise our communities, robbing our people, raping women and children, using unimaginable violence on law-abiding citizens of our country.”
While the president was addressing masses gathered at the stadium in the province of his birth, he invited them to move closer to where he was speaking. That is when one man fell and broke his leg in the ensuing stampede, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported.
But the accident didn’t hamper the festive mood at the stadium as people continued to listen to the president.
He urged South Africans to identify and report criminals to police.
Mbeki called on citizens to not ”sit on the sidelines” when a neighbour or relative is engaged in crime and then blame the police for not doing anything about crime.
He said if the local police do not act, communities should contact provincial and national police commissioners, provincial safety and security ministers and the national minister.
Corrupt government officials should also be exposed thorough community partnerships, Mbeki said.
Poverty
While the president focused on crime, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) focused on the problem of poverty. In a statement on Friday, the federation called on South Africans to remember those who have not reaped the benefits of freedom yet.
”You cannot really celebrate your ‘freedom’ if you are unemployed, have no income and have no proper house,” the federation said in a statement.
Cosatu said 22-million people live in poverty, 40% of the working population are unemployed and millions still live in shacks.
”This poor majority of our citizens cannot understand the statements they hear on the radio or read in the papers about our economic boom and the record profits and executives’ massive salaries.”
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille also cited poverty as a challenge to freedom, alongside crime, access to education and unemployment. But at the same time, Zille said, South Africa’s progress shows it ”would be wrong not to keep hope alive”.
”We only need to look back 20 years, to the gloomy outlook for the future that South Africa had then, to realise how far we have come.”
The Constitution stands between South Africa being a nation built on freedom and a nation ruled by fear, said Zille.
‘Real threats’
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon lamented 13 ”real threats” to the country’s freedom.
First on Leon’s list were the state’s continuing attempts to encroach the independence of the judiciary. Next was an overreach of the executive power, Leon said. Crime, foreign policy, name changes, HIV/Aids, poverty and education also featured on his list.
The 13th threat subsumed the others, he said. ”It is the governing party’s obsession with transformation, meaning political control by the ANC [African National Congress] of all levers of power in society as well as the relentless pursuit of demographic representivity at all costs.”
This, according to the outgoing DA leader, is ”inimical” to the values of individual freedom and accountability.
The Freedom Front Plus was concerned about the polarisation between groups in South Africa over issues such as affirmative action, name changes, language and culture.
”It is clear that the constitutional settlement has shortcomings when looking at issues such as minority rights and self-determination,” said party leader Pieter Mulder on Freedom Day.
Other Freedom Day celebrations were held in Bloemfontein in the Free State, Cape Town in the Western Cape and Eshowe in KwaZulu-Natal.
Those gathered in Bloemfontein were addressed by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, while those in Entumi, Eshowe, were addressed by KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele. — Sapa